Tiger Blood!

I finished up my cover for the 24 Hour Comic Day tonight but I've decided to hold off until tomorrow to post it. I think it came out okay but I am still a little too close to the final piece to really know. You can decide for yourself soon enough.

So, while I have a break from the more recent things, I've decided to show off a few things I did this past summer.

I was contacted earlier this summer by a website called Zooppa. They seem to run various ad campaigns for big name clients but run them as contests. Now, I know as a professional artist I'm supposed to frown on this sort of thing but it seemed like stupid fun so I decided to give it a try. But, I also decided to take as little time on it as possible.

The campaign I joined was for a new Mike's Hard line of drinks called Tiger's Blood. The first thing that sprung into my mind was, of course, Charlie Sheen. I also figured that more than enough people would simply draw tigers. So, I came up with the weird idea of a Charlie Sheen kid wearing a Calvin and Hobbes type tiger costume with a little Adventure Time flair thrown in.

I figured, if nothing else, there would probably not be one other person who contributed to the campaign who would have a Tiger Boy on the can. If Mike's Hard liked the Tiger Boy I would have the market cornered.

I actually drew all of these pieces while at lunch with friends, brought them home, scanned them into the computer, and quickly colored them. I think I was done before dinner.

Of course I didn't win. The winners' cans all had beautiful tigers painted on them in elegant ways. But, in my opinion, none of them were as fun as the Tiger Boy.

Looking back, maybe I shouldn't have entered a contest meant merely to find a cheap way to get some art on a product at a discounted cost. At the time I didn't think it would do any harm. But, now, I am thinking stuff like this may be one of the reasons I haven't had too many new clients this past year. "Contests" like these definitely cheapen the art and the people who create for a living and make it harder for people to do this as a career. So, I don't see myself doing anything like this again anytime soon.

I keep going back to an old mantra I took away from my years of trying to work on other people's comic books. "If there is a project that I may or may not get paid for I'd rather work on my own project. At least that way if I don't get paid I still had fun doing the work and much more control." (not to mention I'd own the project.)

Sometimes we need to be reminded of the lessons we've taught ourselves over the years.

But I still like the Tiger Boy. I may need to use him again sometime!